Starkville, Miss., Mayor Parker Wiseman, right, is congratulated by C Spire CEO Hu Meena, center. Starkville is one of nine communities that will participate in the first phase of C Spire’s fiber initiative.

Associated Press

Google is using a novel strategy to build one gigabit Internet services in several metro areas, but its broader goal of speeding up the Web needs other companies to take its approach to the rest of the U.S.

In Mississippi, a private company called C Spire is adhering to Google’s approach even more closely than other providers.

First, C Spire slices towns into “fiberhoods” — the same term Google uses for the small neighborhoods it targets. Then it goes door to door preregistering homes for its one-gigabit Internet service. C Spire only builds if a certain percentage of residents sign up — again, just like Google Fiber. It even hired Joe Reardon, the former Kansas City, Kan., mayor who worked on the city’s Google Fiber project, as a consultant.

One difference: C Spire goes ahead with building out the service if 35% to 45% of residents in each fiberhood preregister; Google Fiber generally uses thresholds of 5% to 25%.

C Spire primarily used to be a wireless company. But Google’s build-to-demand method persuaded the company to get into the gig game because the model is less risky and potentially more profitable than the traditional path of covering whole areas regardless of demand.

“It’s something we know we will get a return on,” said Suzy Hays, senior vice president for consumer markets at C Spire. “The key to that, and the inspiration from Google, was the crowd-sourced model.”

C Spire had about 4,600 miles of fiber-optic cable before 2014. This year, the company is on course to add 1,400 miles — the most it has ever built in a year.

“I honestly don’t think we would have done it with the traditional model,” said Jared Baumann, who oversees fiber-market development at C Spire. “It’s such a risky businesses.”

C Spire is in the sign-up phase in nine Mississippi towns, including Starkville, Clinton and Ridgeland, according to its website.

Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman said incumbent Internet providers have been reluctant to upgrade their services and new entrants have struggled because franchise agreements used to require new networks to reach all residents. “If you require a new entrant to absorb all those upfront build out costs before they serve a single customer, it becomes cost prohibitive,” he said.

The Federal Communications Commission is changing its tune, Wiseman said, ruling that such franchise agreements were unenforceable in early 2007. That has made business models like Google Fiber’s and C Spire’s possible, he said.

“A day is coming when this will be standard,” Wiseman said. “Cable and telecom companies will be pushed to make market-based decisions to upgrade their networks too.”